Gábor Kornél Tolnai

Gábor Kornél Tolnai (November 22, 1902, in Budapest – February 3, 1982, in Stockholm) was a Hungarian-Swedish engineer and inventor. He is best known for his inventions and patents for spinning machines, devices for the Swedish National Defense and several types of tape recorders.

Biography

Kornél Tolnai was born in 1902 in Budapest in Hungary and took his Diploma Engineer's degree at the Technical University of Budapest in 1924.

During the years 1928–1931 Kornél Tolnai made three inventions of his own, Centralograph, Teletachograph and Regulator, which he accomplished completely. After that he came into contact with the Swedish LM Ericsson. They bought his patents and then he was working at LM Ericsson, both in Stockholm and in Budapest for some years. He set up an experimental workshop in Stockholm and worked with designs and inventions, some of which led to patents. He was active in Sweden from 1935 and became a Swedish citizen in 1940.

Marriage and family

Gábor Kornél Tolnai was the son of Gábor Tolnai and his wife Ilona Tolnai. His father was active in the Magyar Államvasutak, the Hungarian State Railways, popularly MÁV.

In 1932, he met his Swedish wife at a party in the "Winter garden" (''Vinterträdgården'') at Grand Hôtel Royal in Stockholm, when the Swedish-Hungarian society had a jubilee. The Swedish artist David Wallin had just sold a painting, ''Mother and Child'', to the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest ( hu, Szépművészeti Múzeum), and David Wallin was invited to Grand Hotel Royal ( Grand Hôtel Royal with the Winter garden) and he took his 22-year-old daughter Bianca with him. She was an educated artist. Kornél and Bianca engaged on January 24, 1935. In 1935, on September 17, Kornél Tolnai married the Swedish artist Bianca Wallin (1909–2006). She was the daughter of the famous artist David Wallin (1876–1957) and his wife Elin Wallin (1884–1969). In 1935 the couple settled down in Stockholm and in 1942 he moved with his family to a large villa in Bromma, outside Stockholm, where he lived with his family until he died in 1982 at nearly eighty years of age. He had three daughters, Eva, born in 1939, Monika, born in 1942 and Hillevi, born in 1944.

Studies in Budapest

Gábor Kornél Tolnai entered the German-speaking Lutheran Fasori Gimnázium in Budapest for eight years in 1912 through 1920. Budapest–Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium, 1071 Budapest, Városligeti fasor 17–21, was one of the best schools in Budapest, and he got his higher school certificate in the spring of 1920. He was a classmate of Eugene Wigner, eminent physicist, mathematician and Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1963 and schoolmate of John von Neumann, eminent mathematician, physicist, polymath and inventor of the computor. Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium had a strong academic tradition and outstanding teachers, i.e. mathematics teacher László Rátz, physics teacher Mikola Sándor and class teacher Imre Oppel. Fasori Gimnázium is a famous secondary school in Budapest. It is located near the City Park.

After graduating Gábor Kornél Tolnai studied at the Technical University of Budapest. He was ready in record time with his Diploma Engineer degree only 21 years old in the spring of 1924. After his diploma in Budapest in spring 1924 Gábor Kornél Tolnai settled down in Paris for study and practice for three years.

File:Fasori evangélikus templom Budapest.jpg, Budapest Fasori Evangélikus Gimnázium with the Fasor Lutheran Church. The building belongs to the school.
File:Budapest-Fasori Gimnázium, Highschool class 1919.jpg, Budapest-Fasori Evangélikus Gimnáziuim. The highschool class in 1919. Gábor Kornél Tolnai is in the third raw, the fifth from the right and his classmate Eugene Wigner is in the front (first) raw, the second from the right.
File:Tolnai and Wigner 1963-3.jpg, Gábor Kornél Tolnai, to the right, meets Eugene Wigner, in the middle, in Stockholm on December 13, 1963. Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on December 10, 1963. Mrs Mary Annette Wheeler Wigner to the left.
File:Tolnai and Wigner 1963-1.jpg, Gábor Kornél Tolnai meets Eugene Wigner in Stockholm on December 13, 1963. Here they meet each other together with their both families.

Inventions, patents, employment and self-employed

The Group Linum-Taussig

In the autumn of 1927 Tolnai returned to Budapest and became an employee of the Group Linum-Taussig in Budapest as a technical superior and supervisor of the company's industrial spinning machines for spinning textiles manufacturing in the process (Manufacturing process management, MPM) of creating yarn from various raw fibre materials. Spinning is an ancient textile art in which plant, animal or synthetic fibers, are twisted together to form yarn. Linum-Taussig was established in 1922.

The head office of the company ''Linum-Taussig Sámuel és Fiai Lenfonó és Szövőipar Részvénytársaság '' was in Budapest, and they also had a branch office in Győr. ''Linum-Taussig Sámuel és Fiai Lenfonó és Szövőipari Rt.'' was founded in 1922. For the company Linum-Taussig Kornél Tolnai also worked as a supervisor in the city of Győr (''German'': Raab) at their spinning machine factory there. Győr is the most important industrial city of northwest Hungary and is situated about 30 km from Budapest between Budapest and Vienna, with waggons and machinery factories. The factory system began widespread use somewhat later when cotton spinning of textiles was mechanized.

The company in Győr had mechanical flax- and hemp weaving for surface treatment, finishing and impregnation, fabrics of jute, production of bags and tents transportation. The plant had a wide product range of tablecloths, towels, pressings, tarpaulin sheets, and canvas cloths made up of technical textiles. The name of the company, Group Linum-Taussig, shows that it was about Linum (flax). Linum is a genus of approximately 200 species in the flowering plant family Linaceae, native to temperate and subtropical regions of the world. It includes the Common Flax (''L. usitatissimum''), the bast fibre of which is used to produce linen and the seeds to produce linseed oil.

Own company, G.K. Tolnai Fine Mechanical Devices

A year later, in the autumn of 1928, he established himself as self-employed in Budapest with a precision-tool workshop, whose activity was based on three of his own inventions, which he had patented. All these inventions were intended for the registration and improvement of the running of the spinning machines. At times he had about ten employees in his workshop. The name of his firm was ''Dipl.ing. G.K. Tolnai, Finommechanikai készülékek'' for ''Fine mechanical devices'', in Mester útca 13, IX. Budapest in the district of Ferencváros. In his machine workhop in Budapest he manufactured the machines, which he had invented, and he also collaborated with the manager of the company Linum Taussig, Paul Hermann (''Hungarian'': Hermann Pál), Budaörsi út 45, XI. Budapest, Újbuda in the district of Újbuda. The machine was a tool that consisted of one or more parts, and used energy to achieve a particular goal. The machines were usually powered by mechanical, chemical, thermal, or electrical means, and were frequently motorized. A powered tool also requires moving parts to classify as a machine.

The early 1930s

During the years 1928–1931 Kornél Tolnai made three inventions of his own, Centralograph, Teletachograph and Regulator, which he accomplished completely. He manufactured the Centralograph in his own workshop, called "''Dipl.ing. GK Tolnai Okl. Gépészmérnök''", ''M. Sc. G K Tolnai Master of Science Mechanical'', in Mester útca (1928–1931). The spinning of textiles is a major industry for production monitoring and registration of the running of the spinning machines in workshops and offices. It is part of the textile manufacturing process where three types of fibres are converted into yarn, then fabrics.

* The '' Centralograph'' was used for production monitoring and registration of the running of the spinning machines in workshop and offices. The Centralograph is a recording instrument equipped with a number of printing units which record data on a moving chart. The record appears in the form of dashes and numerical digits in a series of columns. The printing units have electromagnet coil which are actuated by external impulses. The chart and the ink ribbon are driven either by a synchronous motor or by an impulse motor. Synchronous motors are commonly used in analog electric clocks, timers and other devices where correct time is required.
:Later on, when Ericsson has bought Tolnai's patent, the LM Ericsson Centralograph was used in industry for the supervision of manufacturing processes and of the function and degree of utilization of machinery. The Centralograph was used as a service observation instrument in automatic telephone exchanges. In LM Ericsson's automatic transit exchanges it was also used for the recording of faults discovered by markers and v.f. receivers. The Swedish Telecommunications Administration (Televerket) has developed application for the Centralograph in telephone exchanges for supervision of automatic processes. One of the first people to build a telephone exchange was Hungarian Tivadar Puskás in 1877 while he was working for Thomas Edison. In 1894 Nicola Tesla